When The World Falls Down
by ChinaWolf
Summary: Ten years on, Brian and Curt still can't get one another out of their heads... all they need to do is get over themselves. Rating will probably change to M.
1. Chapter 1

**Bonjour! It caught my attention recently that there aren't enough Velvet Goldmine fanfics -though there are some brilliant ones- despite it being a great film (tops, smashing, best of the lot XD)**

**I've got a sketchy sort of plan for this, so this chapter is a short experimental one- so if you like it, please review and let me know and I'll carry it on (I hope you will).**

_How I wish, how I wish you were here  
We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl,  
Year after year  
Running over the same old ground,  
What have you found? The same old fears  
I wish you were here_

Brian brought the slick, cold makeup wipe to his face. It stung, cleaving through the orangey goo like Moses through the red sea. Revealing the truth. Brian without any embellishment. He caught his own eyes, held that empty blue gaze for a few seconds, and turned away from the mirror to untangle himself from his awkwardly padded and shaped clothes, slipping Tommy Stone off with them.

In truth, he was sick of Tommy, despite the success that particular alter-ego had brought; like Maxwell, he had been fun at first, an interesting slice of self-study, but- again, like Maxwell- he began to drain Brian of his own personality. Set those age-old confusions about who and what he was atwitter in his skull.

Just an hour ago, performing to a screaming crowd, Brian had forgotten all that; along with his whole life, all he had known was that those people, that sea of jittering humanity behind the camera flashes, loved him just for doing what made him happy. And that was absolutely smashing.

Then, with the end of the show, reality flooded back into the pathways of Brian's brain and reminded him that it was a lie.

He had to get out, before Shannon returned, to look at him with those ever-hopeful eyes and probably drag him off to some god awful interview about tours and Presidents and inspiration-thank you, Mary-Lou, but no.

At the very back of a small, shadowy bar, in the smallest, most shadowy corner, Brian lurked.

Brian hated lurking.

He mused, as he lurked, about the days where he would prance around in glitter and platforms just to bask in the attention, the King of Glam, chattering loudly to anyone with a decent haircut, flinging sultry winks to the girls and boys lucky enough to catch his eye.

Those days were over.

Now, the King of Glam sulked, sipping at a smeary glass of orange juice that tingled almost painfully on his naked lips, famous face hidden under a dark grey hoodie and oversized women's sunglasses, stalling for as long as possible until he'd have to return to the cold ambition that was Shannon, and hollow, exhausted Tommy.

Still, Brian thought, it would do him good to have a little thinking time. His cloak of anonymity gave him the freedom to think about something other than Tommy's career, Shannon's overprotectiveness, and the thing he definitely _wasn't _going to think about.

Ever.

The thing that crept up on him daily, mangled his mind, that had carved out his brain and sat on a glittering throne in his heart ever since that day when he'd stood in a field full of hippies, wearing a purple frock, staring in awe at…

Curt Wild.

But of course Brian never thought about him.

He took a sip of the bitter juice, a grimace tweaking his angular face into an expression of pretty distaste, and set the glass down on the sticky wood table with a muted _clink_; it glared back at him, as if to say '_Stop being so bloody pathetic'_.

_I'm not listening to you,_ Brian thought blackly at it. _What do you know? You'__re just juice, and not even pleasant juice, you're watery and mean and- oh Jesus, I'm having a mental altercation with my drink. And it isn't even alcoholic._

He scowled, leaning back on the hard, chilly chair, when the door creaked open, moaning like a woman in pain, submissive to the man striding through it. Slender, leather-hugged hips swayed as he entered Brian's line of vision, moving with a disjointed sort of grace; that alone was enough to catch his attention, but even worse were the tangled swathes of blonde hair tumbling around his face- a face all too beautiful and familiar.

Curt.

Brian's world exploded.

There were people all around- pretty things he'd been eyeing only moments ago- but to Brian, they had melted away; people, stools, pool cues, tables, all trickling down the drain in the aftermath of Hurricane Curt. He was everything Brian could see. How could he look as though nothing had changed?

His hair was longer, maybe, stuffed into a scruffy ponytail with loose, choppy chunks grazing his jaw where too short tie back- perhaps he looked a little wearier, but otherwise, nothing had changed.

That was the worst part: Curt still blazed with a fierce, almost feral energy, it dripped off his skin like the sweat of performance, mingling strangely with the eerie beauty that coated Brian's every sense as Curt's haunting lips cradled a cigarette, enticed the twisting smoke into his lungs, pouted as they released it back into the suddenly molten air- in short, he was like a mirage from the past, sent to intrigue and torment anyone who looked too hard, specifically Brian.

So, like any sane man would do when confronted with such a divine atrocity, he took the only available course of action and dived under the table.

Bony knees digging awkwardly into his chin, Brian peeked at Curt's boots as they whisked him off to the bar.

"What can I get you?" He caught the bartender's question, or maybe it was just wishful thinking.

"Oh, shit," The American voice replied, tired but amused, "Vodka. It's been that sort of day,"

Sweet fucking Jesus. There it was. That deep, languid drawl, teasingly slow in pace, sent from the past to frazzle Brian's mind and send chills down his spine.

"With coke?"

"I don't care, anything, oh, just give it to me straight!" He sounded relieved to have achieved an actual decision. Curt's usual way of ordering drinks, he seemed to recall, was simple- just a hoarse yell of 'Another!'

"Sure thing."

In his Curt-shock, Brian had utterly forgotten his distaste for being on the floor- "I feel like a peasant!"- and hadn't even considered the teeming hoards of germs surely poised to attack at any time. Luckily, his reeling senses started to settle, coaxing his body back into the chair, sinking further into his hoodie's comforting disguise, hoping the hood covered the glittering designer logo on the arm of his glasses.

Enthralled by the snap of wrist, flick of hair and bobbing of adams apple as Curt downed his shot, motioned for another and repeated the process, he wondered, not for the first time by a long way, what would be different if they had never broken up. Would Curt be drinking alone in a strange bar right now, unkempt and lonely-looking? Would he be doing the same, but unseen, watching his ex-lover from behind the shields of tinted lenses? Would he have ruined Curt to the point where that energy was long faded, so that he couldn't stand there, gorgeous, looking for all the world like the last diamond in an abandoned mine?

_I can't deal with this, _Brian thought. _Not tonight. I'm tired. Fuck Curt for turning up tonight, and how dare he look so lonely? He was the one who left._

The last words of that thought train seemed to echo off the grubby walls.

He was the one who left.

Brian hadn't asked him to, had begged him not to, in fact, yelling at him to piss off through the window was only said out of hurt, and he was pretty sure Curt knew, also knew that he would never have asked him to leave. No matter how bad things got, he never could.

The door screeched again, forced open by a small crowd of people who grinned as they spotted Curt.

"Hey, man!"

"There you are!"

"How's it going, dickhead?"

Maybe he wasn't so lonely after all.

This set off an impulse in Brian: he wanted Curt to remember how it felt to be loved by the King of Glam, to remember and wish and _hurt_- with a perverse sort of pleasure, he wanted to see Curt Wild squirm.

There was a way, of course, to make that happen.

A jukebox glimmered enticingly on the wall, whispering _Come on, Slade. You know you want to. One song is all it takes…_

Almost before he knew it Brian had his long, pale fingers splayed across its cool screen, searching for that beautiful, sad, sublime song, Lou Reed's 'Satellite Of Love', theirs from the start.

"Hey, good choice," Fuck! Brian spun on his heel, suddenly face to face with a swaying, slurring Curt, who obviously hadn't recognized him. "I've been desperate to hear that song aaaaall fuckin' day! You have no idea. You know when you just really wanna hear somethin', then you do?" He giggled. "That's happening now." His tone was cheery, playful even, but his eyes were storm clouds, fringed with dark lashes that only added to the shadow.

Stunned by the sudden closeness and terrified of revealing his identity, Brian said nothing. After ten years of bitter separation, Curt Wild's face was inches from his own, he could count every eyelash, smell that spicy, indescribably _Curt_ scent, feel the heat of his breath stirring the air between them- it was religious.

"I mean, stuff like that isn't my usual bucket of slugs," a smile threatened to tweak the corner of Brian's lips, hastily swallowed by a wave of pain "But it's so… fucking gorgeous." He could only stare, gaining a suspicious look from Curt. "Hey, you're pretty quiet. And why are you wearing sunglasses inside, freakin' diva?"

Out of nowhere, they were snatched away, hood knocked back to reveal his pale, makeup free face and short dark hair curling slightly at the temples- absolutely and unmistakably that of Brian Slade. The sudden maelstrom in Curt's eyes must have mirrored his own.

He closed them, dreading the moment he'd have to speak, and felt gentle, guitar-calloused fingers snaking closed around his wrist, warm apart from the coolness of a chunky silver ring on the middle one, so unexpected that his eyes flew open again almost unwillingly.

"Brian..?" Curt's voice was low, soft, amazed, and he stared at the hand whose wrist he'd claimed as though shocked to find it was real.

It was too much.

Brian jerked his wrist back, inspiring a blaze of sudden anger and hurt in Curt's eyes before he turned away, muttering, to drink and drink and drink with his crowd of mates, making less sense and more noise while Brian lurked like a spider in his corner, watching protectively until Curt passed out mid-sentence, blonde hair flailing for something to hold on to.

He was there to catch the rockstar before he even hit the floor. Touching him, after so long, almost burned, but he didn't lose contact for as much as a second as he called for a taxi to take them both away.

**Lyrics at the start were from Pink Floyd's 'Wish You Were Here'.**


	2. Revelry

**Thank you to all who reviewed, :) ****I'll reply next time! **** And Vienna darling, of course it was intentional!**

**I also proof read my last chapter and have now updated it- I must have been tired when I posted it, because at one ****point it said ''child down Brian's spine'. Not sure what that was about… but I assure you that there were no children in his spine. Or if there were, it was no fault of mine…**

* * *

_In the dark of the night I could hear you calling my name  
With the hardest of hearts I still feel full of pain  
So I drink and I smoke and I ask you if you're ever around  
Even though it was me who drove us right in the ground_

_See the time we shared it was precious to me,  
But all the while I was dreaming of revelry_

_Born to run, baby run like a stream down a mountainside  
With the wind in my back I don't ever even bat an eye  
Just know it was you all along who had a hold of my heart  
But the demon and me were the best of friends from the start._

Out of the taxi window, Brian could just make out the city: reduced to a smudgy impression by darkness, sparse lights skittering over the surface of the swollen river. Days of rain had churned it a muddy brown, engorged like a giant dirty boner, dragging bits of rubbish sluggishly through the city- and this, not the man mere inches away, was the object of Brian's gaze as they juddered alongside it.

He was afraid that if he looked at Curt, he wouldn't be able to look away.

However, even unconscious, Curt was making visual avoidance difficult.

He sneaked a peek.

Bluish-white light spilled over his face and down the pale exposed throat, lingering on the backs of his eyelids to kiss them with its chilly lips, like Brian longed to do. Curt was so still, so peaceful, so utterly unlike his conscious self it was like looking at a corpse- a thought that sent a shudder down his spine.

Curt, he remembered, had always been a restless sleeper; squirming and muttering and poking him with bony knees- but Brian had never minded. Not even once. He liked to hear the murky snippets of Curt's dreams that slipped from his sleeping lips, glowing with pride every time his name was mentioned; sometimes, apparently, they even talked when Brian was sleeping too- once they had done in the studio and Trevor had sworn he'd heard a conversation.

* * *

_Flashback from Trevor's POV_

Trevor had been expecting music when he cracked open the studio door, or at least talking- Brian and Curt had been known to talk incessantly for hours, jabbering of new ideas, of shared inspirations, scribbling frantically on loose paper, guitars, cigarette packets, anything- scrambled lyrics, visions of stage sets, costumes, notes, huge ideas for future shows they would probably forget the next day.

Sure enough, the room was littered with records and empty bottles of liquor- the player's needle nestling at the heart of a record whose A side had finished, unnoticed- but the two musicians lay slumped among their creative debris, fast asleep, Brian's fingers tangled in Curt's hair as though he'd fallen asleep stroking it.

Trevor supposed he had better wake them. If Mandy saw…

She was still under the impression that her husband's affair was a fake, a publicity stunt dreamed up by Jerry, but the rest of the entourage knew better. Curt and Brian were in love. Full on, squeeze your heart, grind it up, chuck it in the bin with a mere glance _love_.

Not that they'd admit it. But living and working in such close proximity to them, it was obvious- it was only a matter of time before Mandy was out, o-u-t.

He hopscotched over a roll of crinkled tinfoil, a cluster of Barbie dolls, two wax crayons and several shoes, inching closer to the slumbering artists, drawing back his foot to nudge Brian when- twitch.

Curt stirred.

He drew a deep breath, made a frustrated noise and muttered petulantly, "Brian. I don't want to try the crab cakes."

For a single, tense moment, Trevor thought they had been faking in order to trick him, but thought better of it. Not their style.

"Obviously." Brian murmured, still fast asleep. "You hate crab." _Whoa!_ he thought, _They even talk to each other in their sleep?_

"But the waiter insists! I don't want to…" Curt's voice was so soft and childish compared to the superior drawl he used in public, it was almost cute.

"You tell 'em, sweetie." _Sweetie? Not very glam rock._

"I'll tell them…motherfuckers…" Trevor choked trying to hold back a bark of laughter.

"I love you, Curt," Brian said, through a mouthful of tangly blonde hair.

"Love you too,"

Trevor crept back out of the studio as quietly as possible, leaving them to their sleep.

* * *

The familiar tug of pain yanked Brian's heart at the memory of his lead guitarist's story, even through his smile. He had always adored it; proof that they were so in love, so in tune, so aware of the other even in sleep.

It proved their relationship had been real.

Not a sham to get media attention. Not a meaningless collaboration, or a brief affair.

Love.

Suddenly, Curt shifted in his seat, blearily mopping the hair off of his face and making a series of small, sleepy sounds that made Brian want to bundle him up in a hug and never ever let go, regardless of his ex-lover's protests or wishes.

_What if he wakes up?_ He thought frantically, _What if he wakes up and hates me? If he gets out of this cab and leaves, what the hell am I going to do?_

But the rock star, it seemed, had no intention of doing so. Eyes still closed, he curled up like a puppy, settling head in Brian's lap.

For the second time that night, his world exploded, and this time the shattered shards of his life sliced at his eyeballs, spewing forth twin torrents of futile, frustrated tears. He wanted, so badly it burned, to run his thumb gently over the eyeliner smudges seeping from under Curt's eyes, his strong jaw, the serially-broken nose. It ached that he couldn't.

Curt's hair was draped irresistibly across his thighs, and Brian, unable to stand it any longer, thrust his fingers into the dirty-blonde tangle, playing softly with the moon-bleached strands, as though he was a precious china doll Brian was afraid to break.

It was all too much, and he cried into his dark grey sleeve, hot tears leaking between his fingers and into the crease of his lips, unseen; his pale, angular face like a cutout mask in the stifling dark- gazing with glassy eyes at the man in his lap and for one, wild moment, he wished.

Wished, so hard it hurt, that their car would break the surface of the sweaty river.

That the slimy water would continue, choking along its path through the city, with Brian motionless at the bottom, and Curt slumbering in his lap for all of eternity.

Sleep is a curious state; it renders the mind and body only partially responsive to external stimulus, fogging true thoughts and blurring the lines of reality- though Curt had never had much of a grasp on that in the first place. Or perhaps just never cared much for it.

In this instance, sleep, in all its magical glory, had turned back time. Only partially responsive, Curt's body knew that it was sleeping on Brian: could sense his dark, delicate scent, and feel the familiar, slender thighs cushioning his head- but it had no idea that they were in a taxi, in 1984, after not so much as speaking for ten years.

Oh no.

As far as his rational mind was aware, it was the early seventies, and he was merely snagging a quick nap before getting back to whatever he and Brian were supposed to be doing.

According to the side of his mind that never got bogged down with facts, there was no time, no place, just Curt and Brian, as they always were, utterly normal.

Brian, however, was all too aware.

As Curt, deep in dreams, murmured soft, nonsensical things, he just sat in silence with tears streaming down his face. The sensation was itself unpleasant, the tears under his collar warm and itchy, but in a way he felt more alive than he had in a long while. Part of him, the inner artist, longed to gaze out at the stars as they lay scattered across the fading watercolour sky, but he couldn't, didn't want to prize his gaze from Curt.

He was far too beautiful, and too ethereal, a moon statue; Brian stared, terrified that if he looked away, even for a second, Curt wouldn't be there when he looked back. Disappeared into the night like the wild thing he was.

Honestly, he was dreading the moment their journey reaches its end. But, with a sudden cease in engine-and-door rattling that made the following silence louder and more unnatural than an unrelenting scream, it came.

**Lyrics ****are ****from the Kings of Leon song, Revelry, ****and talking of songs, DAVID BOWIE'S NEW SINGLE! Enough said.**


	3. Chapter 3

Hello there!

This is the uber-annoying chapter that isn't a chapter, just a message from me. Just to let you know that the reason for my silence is A Level exam season, but that I will be back soon, I've got lots planned for this story so please stick around

DianaDahl- Thank you! I adore Brian and Curt too (and Iggy+Bowie of course), it's feedback like yours that keeps me writing and I'll update as soon as possible xx


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